By Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer Published Jun 04, 2013 at 9:34 AM

There are some house types in the city that simply say, "Milwaukee."

Blocks upon blocks upon blocks of Polish flats and tall Victorian duplexes with broad porches and bungalows populate neighborhoods across town. If you're lucky, your neighborhood also has a surviving stock of 19th century Cream City homes (yeah, I'm talking to you Walker's Point).

In some neighborhoods, toward which money tended to flow and then pool, there are dramatically different styles, from French chateaus along Lake Drive to unique Mediterraneans in the Highlands.

Head further afield and the post-World War II boom led to entire neighborhoods filled with detached Cape Cods.

What fascinates me are the hints at row houses in Milwaukee. Many older Brew City neighborhoods – Walker's Point, Bay View, the East Side – have traces of the kind of row house culture that defines many East Coast cities. But row upon row of townhouses never really seemed to catch on here, likely because Milwaukee was never really crunched for space.

If there were examples of long rows of identical, attached houses, they're gone now.

Some of the better-known – and loveliest – examples are on the lower East Side, on the northwest corner of Knapp and Astor, along Lyon Street and, of course, Ogden Row (1019-1043 E. Ogden Ave.), over which most people I know often salivate at the idea of owning.

More workaday versions are in Bay View on Logan Avenue and on Allis Street. There are some great ones scattered around Walker's Point, like the row of five on 10th and Pierce.

Others that hint at row house culture – though likely were never intended to be built in attached rows – can be found on KK in Bay View (see photo above) and scattered along Kilbourn Avenue near the Marquette campus.

Much of the more recent development along Ogden Avenue has been row houses and the King Commons project is bringing newly constructed bursts of row housing to the area to the north and west of the intersection of King Drive and Center Street.

Will they catch on in the heart of the city now that density is what it is? Only time will tell. In the meantime, it's intriguing to imagine what Milwaukee could have looked like if the row house had really caught on here.

Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.

He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.

With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.

He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.

In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.

He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.